Making textbooks affordable: how Ball State is cutting costs for students
University Libraries teams up with campus partners in support of Textbook Affordability at Ball State (TABS) initiative
At Ball State University, the mission to make education more affordable, equitable, and sustainable is gaining momentum through the collaborative Textbook Affordability at Ball State (TABS) initiative. University Libraries, in collaboration with partners across campus, is at the forefront of efforts to ensure that students can access their course materials in a cost-effective manner.
At Ball State, a course can be designated as affordable when it requires $40 or less in course materials. Affordability can be achieved with Open Educational Resources (OER), no- or low-cost textbook alternatives, or library resources.
Open Educational Resources are teaching and learning materials that can be used by faculty and students without cost and without asking the creator for permission. OER are designed to allow for reuse, and often adaptation, of the materials.
University Libraries offers a tool that simplifies student access to low-cost resources. The Reading List tool gives students easy access to resources selected by their instructors, including links to full-text articles and e-books from library subscription databases, digitized content, OER, streaming video and music, and many other media types. The Reading List tool connects with the learning management system, Canvas—making course resources one click away from other important course content.
During the last academic year, there was a 15-percent increase in the number of courses utilizing Reading Lists, leading to an estimated $800,000 in savings for students. University Libraries projects that these savings can be consistently achieved each year through the use of licensed library resources linked in Reading Lists, materials borrowed from physical course reserves, and the reduction in course material costs by hosting faculty-created learning materials on digital platforms.
Benefits of the Textbook Affordability at Ball State (TABS) initiative
“Every item that’s added to a Reading List is one fewer item a student needs to purchase. It’s exciting to take a traditional library service—one that we’ve offered for decades—and develop it and use it for the current needs of our students and faculty,” said Laura MacLeod Suman, head of access services and open education at University Libraries. “Pairing Reading Lists with increased adoption and the creation of Open Educational Resources is a game changer for course material affordability.”
